This is what I loved so much about New York, that you just never knew what was going to be around the next bend. I walked a few streets west and started to head back uptown again. I heard some music and followed it down a street where I found myself in the middle of a Ukrainian festival. The colours and the dancing were amazing.

By now it was noon and getting pretty hot. I was glad to get to the leafy streets of Greenwich Village. I wandered through Washington Square Park and stayed for awhile to watch these guys doing some swing dancing:

I didn’t stay in Times Square for long, I turned south and headed back downtown. One thing that struck me is how much greenery there is in Manhattan, all in little pockets. The first oasis I found myself in was Bryant Park, the building you can see through the trees is the New York Public Library.

I continued south towards one touristy building that I was making an exception for by searching out. The Flat Iron Building has been on my “must-see” list for so very long that I just had to spend some time just staring at it.

I’ll spare you the “I’ve not posted in ages” blah, blah and just jump right in. Back in May I had the opportunity to shoot a wedding in New York (I know!!). I was there for all of one weekend and I had just one day to go out and explore. I was determined to make the most of it so I set off in the morning and started walking…and walking…for about 8 hours. Just me and my camera with my 50mm lens (well, I had my wide angle too but I took a couple of shots in Times Square with it before putting it back in my bag, I just loved the simple look the 50mm was giving me) with no other plan besides following my nose and shooting whatever caught my eye. I didn’t go shopping and I didn’t go into any landmarks, I just wandered and drank it all in. I’ve got some posts lined up in roughly the order they were taken, so for the next week or so, starting Monday, this Irish blog is going on a little stroll through New York.

This is St Anne’s Golf Club on Bull Island, which is an accidental island that sprang up when a wall was built to try and stop silting blocking up Dublin Bay. Now it’s a Park and a Bird Sanctuary. I’m ashamed to say though I was born and raised in Dublin this was my first time setting foot on the Island. Claire and Gav were loaned a Golf Cart and we went off and had a bit of fun with it. It was the end of March so although it looks like Barbados it was actually quite chilly and they were very patient with me. I could have kept snapping all day except Claire’s teeth were starting to chatter.

Another shot from Sunday’s photowalk. I peeked in to have a look at the Dublin on Ice set up in Smithfield and well, it’s no Rockefeller Center. Still the red, white and blue caught my eye.

I’ve been suffering with Photo-Block, I go out with the camera and come back not having taken a single shot, I’m not sure where it came from but I’ve definitely been in a rut. That’s why an email that I got last week from Lauren from Simply Zesty really cheered me up. It was to invite me along to a Photowalk around Dublin with the theme “Cheer Up Ireland” which was being organised to promote Vodafone’s “Cheer Up Ireland” competition on Flickr (€3000 voucher prize so well worth entering!). I’ve not been on a Photowalk for ages and I always find that they’re a great way to shock me out of my comfort zone. We met up in town yesterday morning and we all agreed that having seen the brown slushy streets and grey skies it was going to be a challenge to find anything cheery to photograph. We set off for the Phoenix Park where it was still a Winter Wonderland and I started to wander away from the group to see what I could find. I spotted a family with some sleds and decided to follow and see where they were off to, I mean, what’s cheerier than a family having fun on sleds? Well, after a lot of walking I came through some trees and discovered a whole hill of people of all ages insanely throwing themselves down the slopes on everything from boogie boards wrapped in plastic bags to car bonnets. Perfect!

So, after about an hour of photographing all the fun I realised all the other Photobloggers had already moved on so I hoofed it over to Smithfield where I found them all on the Ferris Wheel:

After an impromptu snowball fight with the mischievous guy below we were all feeling a little bit cold and hungry so we headed back to the Odessa for a delicious lunch laid on by Vodafone. It was great to see all the familiar faces and I really enjoyed taking photos for the fun of it again so thanks to Simply Zesty and Vodafone, it was just what I needed!

Just a quick post to say that I will be taking part in my very first art fair showing some of my newborn photography at Christmas at Clermont in Rathnew this weekend.

It all kicks off tomorrow evening at 5pm in Clermont House and will be running all weekend with free admission and lots of local artisans and craftspeople showing and selling their wares. Might be a good place to do a bit of Christmas shopping. If you’re there please stop and say hi.